Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 066: Building an X-Shaped Physique, Weight Belts, Improving Bench Press & Quitters

Episode Date: April 22, 2015

Q&A time once again. This week Sal, Adam and Justin answer PumpHead questions about the type of training required to build an "X-Shaped" physique, the top reasons people quit working out and how to turn them around, when (and when not) to wear a weight belt and how to improve your bench press when you don't have a spotter. Keep the questions coming in @Mindpump on Instagram!

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Welcome to Mind Pumper. Welcome to your doom. Uh, this is the fitness show that tells the truth. We don't bullshit on this show. Not at all.

Um, this is Salda Stefon. I'm here with Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews. And we're about to answer some questions. It's the Q&A time. I like this. By the way, people are getting better at questions. Yeah. I mean, we just did, we dedicated actually an episode two A question. It was so good. So, you know, applauding guys, for the most part, we have some pretty good questions on it. As questions, if it's a good one, you'll get a shout out. We'll definitely answer it. Yeah, and we do like talking about other stuff

besides fitness too. Okay, I get bored of that sometimes just saying. Just saying. I mean, we do that all day long. I know most people are feeling so. I know people want to kind of keep it, you know, within what we're preaching all day. Yeah, I would like to expand on that for sure.

Yeah, Adam's feeling used right now I just used before my fitness. Come on, man Yeah, I got other sides to me. I do right? Yeah, I do it I like I like to see you guys square when we ask my random questions So I like I love the sex ones. I know that much Of course you guys get all squirming me all like all square red face the other the other day Sal always has his go to I will I'm not very good for this one because I have been married for a year.

And he's this shit right over Justin and Justin's like, oh shit, that didn't give me no time. Yeah, and then Adam comes on the side and he's like, let me tell you about race jobs. Yeah. All right, so first question. Yeah, first thing. This is from Justin Willis, 21.

His question is, what you talk about Willis. What you talk about. His question is, how important is body type in building the X-shaped physique? And what kind of training can help you get that? So first we should explain, what is the X-wing?

What he means with the X-shaped physique? This is the classic, I guess body builder type physique where you have the wide shoulders. That's the top of the classic, I guess body builder type physique where you have the wide shoulders, that's the top of the X, right? The small waist, which is the middle, and the bigger legs, which is the bottom. So that's the X shape physique.

And he wants a very symmetrical. Very symmetrical, small waisted, that kind of male version of the hourglass. Yeah, the aesthetic look. So is body type important? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Let's, I mean, you think about it just from,

I mean, it's a fact. Well, your bones? Yeah, your bones, exactly. If somebody has a torso, that is, you know, six inches longer than their lower half, that makes it's not gonna give the sun an X. You're gonna hit the wide, you know. Yeah, you say, if you have wider hips,

if you, I mean, there's just some things that you just cannot chase. Now, can we significantly improve our current physics, like what we are dealt? Absolutely. Absolutely. And you can sculpt and you can shape, and you can definitely get pretty damn close.

And I believe you can almost achieve that X, even if you didn't't weren't born with it I don't think it'd be necessarily born with it, but I definitely think that genetics play a huge role and How how easy or difficult it is for you to achieve that you know, it's I'm a perfect example I don't have wide clavicle. I don't have wide shoulders, you know, I don't have a um the classic bone You know structure for the X shape physique But what I did is I developed the hell out of my delts. And so when you see me work in out and stuff, I've got really big delts. And so

it creates the illusion that I might have more of an X shape. But if you peeled on my muscle off and you put me next to someone who has more of a natural X shape like Adam, you'd see that his shoulders are much wider. There's actually Mr. Olympia, the, I think he's Phil, he's still the current Mr. Olympia. The, I think he's Phil, he's still the current Mr. Olympia. Yes, yes. He's got narrow shoulders, but he's got massive ass delts. Yeah. And so he gives him that wide delt look,

but he doesn't have wide shoulders. And I have a really naturally wide back, but then I have my legs are really long. So I have a really, really long legs, I'm six foot three. So my origin and insertion of my calves is short considering how long my legs are, too. So I definitely do not have this naturally symmetrical physique whatsoever. It's taken a lot of, I mean, and it's just how I train is,

obviously, I mean, I'm still not, in my opinion, my lower half is nowhere near as balanced and symmetrical as my upper. And I do three times the work on my lower than I do on my upper body, but yet it just doesn't, you know, it's, it takes that much more work for me to even stay close, you know, so and everyone's different. So I think genetics play a role, but I think you can get it pretty close. I like to think I'm pretty close, you know, I like to think that when I get up on stage, I mean, that's what they're looking for, you know, when it

comes to men's physique. Looking for the exaggerated x x x physique. Yes, exactly. That's what they're, they're looking for. So I'm doing my best to create that illusion as much as I possibly can. Yeah. So I, I would say the exercises that you can focus on, definitely want to work on your delts, definitely want to work on your last. Well, it depends, it would depend on the person, right?

So if you're someone like me who has the white back, then you have to put the extra work in the legs. If you have the natural legs, or, you know, so it would depend. That's how you would just like, what you said with the shoulders is a great point. That's perfect for somebody who has narrow shoulders. If you have narrow shoulders, working on the deltoids and really working on that,

that wide back, getting that wider back, so it creates that illusion, they have a smaller waist like, absolutely, you know, so, but that's for that person, you know, if you've already got a really wide back, but maybe you have really small legs, well then your ass needs to be doing more legs. You know, there's not enough emphasis on thickness in the back.

We all talk about how wide a back is, but if you look at someone from the back, walking away from you with the shirt off, and they have a really wide back because they do lots of pull ups and stuff, but they don't have good depth. It doesn't look impressive. It was terrible.

And I've seen football players. Pancake look. It does, and I've seen football players. Pancakes look. It does. And I've seen football players who are lean, who probably never do a pull-up, but do lots of cleans and rows and dead lifts and stuff. And they don't have the widest laughs, but they have a thick back. And up or back, they have what's called a thick yoke, they call it. And that shit looks impressive, man.

Yeah. And when they're walking away from you, you know what, a crazy thicknesses back. There's this one photo of Doreen Yates back in the day where he's waiting to go on stage and it just looks like two columns of muscle going down from his traps all the way down to his glutes and that just looks insane. I think it looks much more insane that just a wide back. Oh, absolutely. So I think the thickness is that was my last focus on the maps and I put a lot of emphasis and changed some things up to focus on the thickness in my back.

That's where I started incorporating a lot of deads, a lot of dead lifting and dead lifting variations in the rack poles and things like that that I was not doing before to really add that thickness. Even doing some specific hammer strength exercises, which I know you're not a huge fan of utilizing things like that, but I was you're not a huge fan of using utilizing things like that, but I was specifically hitting like my rhomboids and things that are like hard target, specifically to give that illusion of a thicker back.

So definitely things like that, if, and that's the part where you're not bound by genetics. Because if you would, I mean, my shape is significantly different than what it was three years ago, three years before that and three years before that. I mean, it just is significantly different than what it was three years ago, three years before that and three years before that. I mean, it just slowly but surely, and that's part of it too, is that, you know, this shit takes time. You know, people don't want to admit that, that they don't want to admit that it just, you're not going to look the before and after, when you see someone who's six months, most of those times those people are into their 30s plus. They've already got a lot of muscle maturity on their body to do that. So, you know,

where I'm at now, there's no way that I could have achieved that at 22 years old. You couldn't, you just take time or the iron, just takes time of consistently doing that for years and years and years. And even being consistent, that any consistent, that back to being consistent, like, I mean, that's still you're still slowly progressing over time and putting in that time or the iron. You just have to do that, you do that before you get to that point. Absolutely true.

We're not bound by genetics, but absolutely. It plays a role. Absolutely. All right, so next question, this is someone who likes that. We actually like her question. She's, we've answered a few of them. This is from Cassidy H628. And the question is, what are some of the top reasons

that people have given us for quitting, wanting to quit their workout? And what do we say to them? Like clients? Yeah, like clients, they don't want to work out anymore, or even friends of ours or whatever. And what do we do to help start them up? Let's never, what's number one?

Well, I don't know. Yeah, so what do you guys think? Time is number one. Oh, wait, yeah, yeah. Time is number one. I don't have the time. Yeah, oh, you'll see a man have four kids at a job. Time.

Time is always. Yeah, there's always things that come and interrupt it. And there's also situations where they get it, like I've had clients who have been in pain. And then it gets to a point where, you know, do I do surgery? Do I not do surgery? Do I keep at this, you know, at the slow progression of alleviating it and stretching and, you know, this daily battle kind of a thing. So it's just, it's tough, man. There's a lot of things you battle, like, you know, as you, as you get older, unfortunately. No, that's a, that's a good one because if you're exercising

and something it hurts, unless it's an injury, you probably shouldn't stop. You just might want to change the way you work out to correct whatever imbalances cause in that pain. But let me, let me tell you something. Let's say you do need surgery. Let's say you need surgery on a rotator cuff or whatever. You're gonna be better off strengthening

all the surrounding muscles, going into your surgery, and afterwards the recovery is much faster. So, I wanna bring up that point, but then with Adam's point with making time, let me tell you something. Time is the number one excuse for anybody who wants to quit anything. Not going to school, not learning this,

not doing that, I don't have enough time. All of us, every single one of us on this earth has the same amount of time per day. We have 24 hours. Yeah. Everybody has 24 hours. You're the one that decides how to use that time. Absolutely.

So you can decide if you want to take an hour out of your day to exercise or an hour out of your day to learn something or if you don't want to take that time of your day. And I have yet to find anybody who's literally too busy to exercise at all. I've never, it's super, super rare. Most of us will watch TV at some point. Most of us will, you know, do certain things

so that, oh, I like to go shopping or I'll do this for myself. Look, exercise can be fit in. And you don't need to work out a lot, man. You could look, two, three hours a week, that's plenty to get in just better shape. You don't need to train like, you know, like we do. Is Cassidy a trainer?

I don't know. I think she might be actually, because she seems to ask trainer type questions. So I wonder if she is, this would be more helpful. I, I, probably, I don't know, three, five years into my career, I started to get frustrated with these, because it's common.

Let's be honest, we're in a profession where more than 50% of the time clients fail. Yeah. You know, that's, so we're like baseball, man. I mean, that's like one of those sports where, you know, the tools, but you, you have to be an active, you have to be, yeah, 70% of the time we fail.

I mean, let's be honest, even if you're the most awesome trainer of the world, you'd be lying. But that's still higher success rate than on their own. Oh, yeah. I know what you mean. It's tough. Yeah. But here's the tough part.

The tough part is this what she's asking, which is, people quitting. People quitting on it, not falling through. So one thing that I used to, I was always trying to get clients to make money when I first started and then my attitude changed when the money came. When the money came and then I became, then I like to say that I started to focus

on being a better trainer. And part of becoming a better trainer when I would get somebody, I used to, it almost take away. It was, this is gonna be challenging. It's, to me, I explain it like, this is like somebody who's contemplating whether they think college or going to be challenging. To me, I explain it like, this is like somebody who's contemplating whether they think college or going to school

and making the sacrifices for four years is going to be worth their time or not. Because that's a lot of time. Someone puts into school. You go to a four-year college or you go on beyond that. That's a lot of time that you dedicated to something in hopes that it's going to pay off in the future for you. Well, the same thing happens when you sign up with me.

You're going to spend six months to a year, minimum with me, and here's the deal. It's going to be tough. There's going to be times where you're going to make sacrifices. You're going to wish you could have done this. You wish you would have done that. You're going to be frustrated with me.

You're going to feel like you failed sometime, just like school, just like that. You're going to go through those same pains. But I'll tell you what, if you graduate, you make it all the way through with me. I guarantee it will change your life, and you'll look back at it. Even if you decide you're not going to keep this fit lifestyle up for you, you'll now have the tools and resources to change your own life at your own will and dispense whenever

you want to at guaranteed no matter how much that how much it costs to spend that time with me, it's worth it. And if you can explain that to them at the very beginning and the other thing is too, like Salah saying with time, like everybody has the same amount of time in your day. So I'm making you commit to that that this has to be a time for you every single day. It doesn't mean you have to come to the gym every single day, but there needs to be a time in the day that can be the time that you can work out. Whether you got to get up an extra hour earlier before work every single day, or you got to stay an extra hour later

somewhere, or you're going to make it happen on a lunch break. Something that you consistently do, just like you brush your teeth every day. You never make any excuse. There wasn't enough time to brush your fucking teeth, or take a shower. These are just things that you come habitual. The gym is a lifestyle. Something that you have to do for the rest of your life, if you're looking for longevity, overall health, and trying to change your physique, right? So if you're going to do this, you have to learn to make it a part of your lifestyle, the same way that you eat, breathe, sleep, and brush your teeth.

Well, and to kind of be, I don't know, like just thinking about this as far as clients that want to quit and that sort of mentality, leading into it, you kind of know what you're dealing with, right? And so you're dealing with. And so you're gonna have battles with certain people that are coming in, that are gonna have certain preconceived notions of what to expect.

And you know what, you're just not gonna win everybody over with your philosophy, with your way of looking at life. It's gonna be completely different. And that's okay. The thing is, is that you can infuse, you know, whatever sort of philosophy that you have that you hold dear into this person and they have to accept it. If they're not going to accept it and they're not going to run with it, you know, that's them. You know, that's in there. It's in their ball court. And

so, you know, I get frustrated with that sometimes because maybe somebody isn't making progress or maybe somebody isn't Doing the exact things that I told them to do and then they come back and they have You know, they watch something on TV like oh doctor Phil told me that if I did X amount of stretching It's gonna extend my life, you know this long or whatever This happens all the time and and you're giving them constant Information and you're educating them constantly. You just have to be set in the fact that you know what you're doing. They're paying you a service to educate them, to help further them in their pursuit, but it's their pursuit. It's their journey.

It's their progress. It's completely in their court. And so once you start kind of pulling yourself out of the equation that, look, you have to keep referring to me as your resource. Like I'm here in your corner and I'm cheering you along, but this is completely your journey. What's that saying? You can bring a horse to water? That's it.

That's all you can do. A good tip, you make me think of something else along these lines is that I started doing this later on too, where I started setting smaller, shorter, obtainable goals to teach them through. Something I found out with clients is that you could tell them all day long, like you do this, you do that, you do this, you're supposed to do that. And then what happens if they don't stick to it, they don't go through it, they don't

ever really believe it, because they never get to feel it, or they never get to see it themselves. They don't even quite get there sometimes. Yeah, so, so, so, so, so, So what I'll do is I'll set small things like that I'm trying to teach, like, so let's say you're teaching like program design, like we're talking about with Justin right now,

and the difference of if we were to work out this way with weights, train this way for two to three weeks, and then watch what happens when I switch you up, watch how your body feels, like the things you're talking about right now, how you feel. And so we'll do, this is all I want you to focus on. I don't want to focus on this scale. I don't want to spend a little bit of a way. We're not going to get really crazy in the nutrition.

Let's just talk about program design. We're going to focus on that. We're going to do that for two to three weeks. Let you feel it. Then I educate you and I teach you on it. Same thing with nutrition, okay? That's what we're going to do. Now we're going to really track your protein.

And we're going to focus on that and look for good proteins throughout the day and start making good choices on all your meals, just that. And we're gonna work on one thing. Yeah, one thing at a time. It really amounts to that one thing and they've done study after study that, you know, if you wanna make a change, you have to focus on one thing.

Is that not everything? You can't do everything. And you know what reminds me of this? And I feel like this is where I got really, so one sport in my entire life, have I ever tried to do and felt like I don't want to do it. Because I'm so competitive, you give me something, anything, and I've never done it before.

I'm going to want to get good at it. I'm just like that. And I'll keep doing it until I'm pretty competitive in it. Golf has been like, I was just talking to Sal about that. You was telling keep doing it until I'm pretty competitive in it. Golf has like been. Yeah, I was just talking to Sal about that. You're telling me I love golf. Oh, Adam has. Adam already went through his golf face already. Adam has got Adam's got. Oh, bro, I have freaking tailor-made sick ass clubs. I look like Tiger Woods out. You know what I was saying? I was going three, four days a week trying to get good at it.

And then, but here's the analogy that I'm giving why you call being such a nightmare is because there's so many little things with biomechanics and the and stuff, form and technique with that sport and it's such a, it reminds me of personal training. There's so many minute little things that you can do in personal training to make all the differences, right? But they're they all are, but they all work together and that you won without the other training to make all the differences, right? But they all work together.

And that one without the other really doesn't work. Just because you roll your wrist perfect in golf if your hips are all effective. It's gonna screw, so everything's- So it's gonna be a huge way to fix everything. It does, in a huge way. And that's how I feel training is in teaching somebody. And my buddies used to teach me to drive me nuts

because they would give me all this shit to think about. And I'm like, that is so much for me to think about through this swing. It's like, I had to stop going with them. I go by myself and teach myself because I'm like, okay, I suck at this. I'm just going to keep swinging until I get really good at this. And then when I notice I got that really good, that, okay, now I'm going to start going to add on layers. Yes.

And I'm like, God, this is so much like teaching somebody training. And for so many years, I want to give it all to you. The nutrition, the workout, the cardio, this is so much like teaching somebody training and for so many years, I wanna give it all to you. The nutrition, the workout, the cardio, this, yeah. So now I always have the tilt clients to pump their brakes. I just did this with a girl the other day because she was lighting me up because she felt like, I feel like I haven't learned enough, yet I'm like, listen, this is why I make people stay

with me for months because over time, we're going to come across all these things and I wanna teach you one thing at a time. You still haven't proven to me, you can do this. Have you noticed? Yeah. Have you want to move on to this already? Yeah.

Have you noticed every time you get a new client, it's changed. Your approach has changed from every single new person you get because you're always trying to improve. You better. Well, you get better, but as far as being a? So you've learned to simplify the approach from the very beginning because that's what works the best. Absolutely.

And so yeah, just focus on that. Great advice, fellas. Next question is from KVNHORNI, H-O-R-N-E. The question is, this guy or girl? I think it's a guy. I don't think a girl would have a horny. Kevin's horny? Kevin Horny. Kevin's horny. Kevin's horny.

Kevin's horny. There it is. When is the proper time to wear a weight belt? Well, I'll tell you, there's really, I could think of a few exercises that you should wear a weight belt and pretty much every other exercise, if you wear a weight belt, you're a douchebag. Oh, good new year, you're gonna go that strong.

Oh, you're gonna go that strong. I was wondering if you're gonna go that strong. Yeah, you're gonna go that strong. I was wondering if you was gonna go that strong on that. Oh yeah, if you're doing curls. Go at hard in the bait. Yeah, if you're doing curls and you're wearing a belt or you're doing tricep press down, you're wearing a belt, you're doing tricep press down. Yeah, you're an idiot.

Stupid. Yeah, you're doing core strength. Yeah, barbell squats, dead lifts, maybe like heavy, standing push press. How about a heavy single dumbbell row? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Yeah, maybe not. Why are you doing that?

Adam was like, I mean. I don't even have a belt. You guys know, you just can't talk shit to me. I don't even own a belt. So I don't use a belt for anything. Well, and the other thing, use the belt when you're going really heavy. So if you're doing sets of like real heavy weight, and weight is all real.

Yeah, if you're like maxing out, I mean, if you're doing one, really, if you, if you need to wear a weight belt and you're doing like a normal part of your exercise routine, you're overexerting yourself. Like you're, you're, if you have to compensate by arching your back and you, and you have to like, you know, throw momentum into the mix, like you're not strong enough. Yeah. You're not strong enough to pick that weight up. It's just a, it's a simple fact. Like just, and I know some people get butt hurt about the whole wrist wrap thing and like all this kind of stuff. If you're not strong enough to grip that shit, you're not strong enough. Yeah, that's,

that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that happened to me last time. I'm sorry dude, that's the real deal. Like if you can't fucking hold it in your hand, you're not strong enough yet. Yeah. But, you know, if you have issues where you are strong enough and like you've hurt yourself or whatever, that's where the exception is.

Well, I'll tell you what, I, I wear a belt. So when I, when I squat, I wear a belt any time I go above three, 15. When I deadlift, I wear a belt when I when I squat, I wear a belt any time I go above 315 When I deadlift I wear a belt when I go above, you know 405 And that's pretty much it if I do front squats I'll wear a belt when I get it to like 275 And that's just for safety because I only weigh 200 pounds. I'm lifting a lot of weight for a guy my size And if my form breaks down when I'm at the bottom of a squat or when I'm bringing a lot of weight for a guy in my size. And if my form breaks down when I'm at the bottom of a squat

or when I'm bringing a deadlift up, the belt is gonna give me a little bit of extra insurance. But really other than that, you know, why? Why wear a, unless you're gonna wear a weight belt for all your whole life and just walk around every day wearing a weight belt, then if you're gonna get stronger with a weight belt on and not stronger without one.

Well, I think if you're really trying to press forward, right? If your ultimate end goal is to like increase, like your overall weight, like you want to get stronger. And then, you know, I see like, if I'm getting closer to my max, then yeah, I'll wear a weight belt. Well, here's, and here's the thing that I see in, I don't know if, I don't know his tag,

or I mean his Facebook name or Instagram name who he is What it looks like if he's a competitor or somebody trying to get in that world But it's extremely popular popular in my world if you're if you're not wearing a belt you're wearing a squeam Oh my god Those are like the two things right now and they weren't waste the car race training right waste training is the newest waste training and screams are The biggest thing in the competitive world right now and it's probably one of the biggest things that drives me crazy And I'm like with Sal I'm with Sal and you on on the belt thing like I don't use about I don't even own a belt I actually want a belt because they're you know

Recently you guys got me into lifting heavy again I haven't been doing heavy squatting and dead lifting and God knows how long. Right. And I've gotten back into it, which has gotten me into going a couple times I've wanted to go, then I haven't, I haven't actually not really maxed out on anything because I'm afraid to, you know, I'm like, I'm afraid to stack four plates.

Oh, maxed out, I'm afraid to rack six plates and pull. Like, you know, I'll get close, I'll get close, but I never do something that I have, I haven't failed anything. I haven't dropped the barbell. I haven't dumped the weight yet I haven't pushed myself there and you know if I was gonna push myself to that place I'd like to have a belt for that for right when I'm about to take it to failure with a bunch of shit on my back or Pulling a bunch of weight, but I mean I can do I can do sets of two two to four all day long with no belt and moving heavy weight

You know, I'm not like I'm doing not heavy weight. I'm still moving heavy weight, but to me, it's so unnecessary and it's become so popular because the fact that you're basically killing the core because you're trying to, you want that. Atrophy. Yeah, you're atrophying the core. Placing its job.

Yeah, and your muscles have jobs. Yeah're placing its job. Your muscles have jobs. The job of the obliques is to stabilize your spine when you're going left, right? It's holding everything together. Well, look, if any of you listeners have ever broken a bone and had to wear a cast, what does it look like when you take the cast off? No muscle, everything's gone. Well, that's what a squeam is. That's what wearing a belt all the time does, is you're allowing the muscles to weaken an atrophy and in your world, an atom's world, the

physique world, or, you know, these competitive world, they're trying to shrink their waste by any means possible. And so they're going to shrink it by making the muscles smaller, which is ridiculous. So in other words, if you're not a competitor, you're doing it, you're really stupid. And if you're a competitor, you're just stupid. Yeah. If you're a competitor, you're doing it, you're stupid. If you're not a competitor, you're doing it, you're really stupid. And if you're competitive doing it, you're just stupid. Yeah. There it is. If you're competitive, you're doing it, you're stupid. If you're not a competitor, you're doing it, you're really stupid. Because there's really no reason,

because you should be overall, before you don't care if you're wasted. Yeah, this is where I completely step out of that world and that mindset. Like, I don't understand it. I think it's absolutely ridiculous. Well, I freaking stupid. I think it's absolutely ridiculous. Well, I freaking stupid. I think it's so ridiculous because I have not heard a judge tell

somebody this really, like, and I haven't heard anybody lose because they're, because they just, yeah, they were too much during their waste. Yeah, you know, it's just, it's trying to create that illusion more. They're trying to, like I said, with a waste of so much smaller and the upper backs of which water, but really is, is it making your physique that much different?

Like, I don't know. I've seen a lot of these guys after they wear their screens and stuff, and yeah, it does look a little bit different. Does it look better? I don't think so. No, if you want to get, you know, your waste have,

you know, they look crazy. They look these tiny waste, and it looks tiny and boxy, because it has no muscle shape to it. So, yeah, you look so much. Well, it's just like, then just get like your calf implants and get your freaking plastic surgery and get a lot of other shit to go with it.

Just do it all. That's all I'm saying. Do it all. That's a thought. Be fake completely. You can also just practice the old timers that used to practice vacuum poses. And on stage, you would make their waist look smaller.

So you can actually strengthen muscles that pull in your midsection to give you a smaller waist rather than weakening yourself like an idiot. So Doug, how are we doing on time Douglas? Yeah, we have time for one more. Good, one more question, is that okay? You guys wanna move on to the next one? Yeah, right, right, dude.

All right, so this is from one-on-one underscore south. And the question is how to get better at bench pressing if you don't have a spotter. Oh, that's all right. Considering I've never had a spotter at the bench press. Oh, you know what? Since you're probably the best bencher here, I'll just... You got nice peck points.

You know what? I'll claim that because you got the dead left. I got the benching, that's for sure. I don't really have anything. You got stuff. It's okay. It's just the best... I really don't have anything. That got stuff. It's okay. I really don't have anything. Have you talked about the best quarter turns?

Yeah, that's fucking real cool. You got the easiest tab. The easiest tab. He's the sexiest. I do the biggest cock, though. There it is. I was waiting all night. We haven't had it.

I was waiting for Justin Steeler from you. He stole it from you last night's episode. What can I do with cock tonight? Somewhere in there. I don't know. I'll always find a way to do it. Pull it out whenever I think of it. In you and us.

Yeah, so one thing that I like to do that I just got into maybe about a year ago or so. Now that they have the kind of squat racks where you have pegs that you can hang rubber bands from, this has been a great thing for me because I'll hang it from the top and you know it sort of acts as a spotter in the fact that it alleviates a bit of the load for you down at the bottom of your lift right. And so that way you can really focus on pressing your way through and really driving your out with a little bit of help externally for that. So I use the bands from that sense. And then I also, I don't know, I use what about safety's Like a lot of benches have safety. Yeah, some benches have safeties.

And then, you know, I'll actually split and I'll do single arm work, you know, with some dumbbells. And I'll isolate a bit that way and just try and stabilize. But yeah, yeah, if you're just looking for overall safety, yeah, they do have like, you know, on the racks, actually have those arms that extend. And you can preset it so it's not gonna, like you're not gonna drop it on your neck. So you can do that.

If the other thing too, when people ask me this question, we'll always come into my mind is, the reason why you want a spotter and you're afraid to bench without a spotter is probably because you're going to failure all the time. That too. I don't need a spotter when I bench heavy because I'm not going to failure. Now, if when I'm doing singles, then I'll put the safeties on the rack or I'll have a spotter. But otherwise, to get stronger in the bench, doing three, four reps, which are real low,

I'll pick a weight that I can do for five or six. And then I'll do multiple sets of that. And you'll actually improve faster that way anyway than going to failure. So you don't really need a spotter. So that I'll do multiple sets of that. And you'll actually improve faster that way anyway, I think, going to tell you. So you don't really need a spot. So that's what here's what I do. And I think you could, I think Justin's right, rubber bands, chains are also great. You could also do like where you start right at the bottom. And you actually have dead start, dead start lift. You could do a lot of things like that to help. But I think more than anything that will help you, because I, this things like that to help, but I think more than anything

that will help you, just so you know, I train by myself all the time. I don't like training with people. And so, and obviously I've made huge gains. Chesa, I've told you guys in a story before that I couldn't even, it wasn't until I was in my 20s, could I hit a wheel on each side. So, and now I work out comfortably with 315, you know, so I'm not like the strongest guy in bench, but I can put up some decent weight considering where I was definitely and started. And a lot of that is due to just a periodization, learning how to rotate like what we talked about, how the phases just like our program goes phase one, phase two, phase three, where

you're focusing on specific things and you don't ever have to really go to failure. You just, you have to get out of the weight thing. Like people think like, oh, I can only bench two, you know, let's say your bench is two, 25. And you've been stuck at two, 25 for a year. And that's more than likely, like, like, sourcing, you're probably training to failure all the time. Or you're working your way up to that two, 25.

And you probably have a certain way that you work up to that. And you've worked up to that for, like, get that out of your head, start lifting 185 and wrapping it out, you know, six to eight times. And then you do that for a couple of weeks. And then the next week of that, you drop it all the way down to one to three reps for, you know, two to three weeks. And then the next week after the next week's following after that, then you're doing 15 reps and you're super setting and you're, you know, fatiguing it out like Sal was talking about earlier. But these are things that you could totally do to, you know, continue to grow muscle, build muscle,

even though you're not lifting heavier weight necessarily in that part of the team, when you come back around and you revisit lifting heavy, you will have built muscle. You will have built muscle, you will be stronger, and you'll watch go up, but get out of that mentality of if you kind of lift always heavy, and you're thinking that way,

which is typically what happens, normally someone who asked me about increasing their bench press and I'm like, the first thing I asked, well tell me how you lift right now, and they respond to me, it's normally like they have this, you know, eight to 12 reps,

you know, and I warm up, and then I work out, and it isn't that, and they kind of have the same split, the same kind of hypertrophy type training or a pretty similar modality all the time, you know, and that's why they've been kind of stuck and it's like, dude, the best thing you could be even introducing like power movements out of your chest as well. Exactly. Exactly.

I'll do body weight explosive out the bow suit. Like, I'll go through phases where I incorporate plyometric work with like lifting, you know, that's so different from my body. And yeah, I have to do weight lighter weight. I'm doing dumbbell flies with 35 pound dumbbells. Getting stronger at your lockout, I do like really, really deep dips. Yeah. And so I do that to increase my bench all time. That's a great one. That's a great one. Yeah's a great one. You could do floor presses. Floor presses where you lay on the floor, you un-rack a barbell, like you're gonna do a bench press

come down, the rest your bottom your arms on the floor and then press it up and you get that lock out. Yep, from that. Yeah, there's a lot of really cool things that you can do at that. But I would think that that's the normal problem, is that whatever they've been doing, they've probably been doing it.

Definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again. Why is it not moving forward? Yeah. Shocking it. Shocking off. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. For more information about this show and to get valuable free resources from Sal, Adam,

and Justin, visit us at www.mindpumpradio.com. Until next time, this is Mind Pump. www.minepompradio.com. Until next time, this is Mind Pump.